"Screenplay. Nobody ever loved life, feared death, or described them better than Tolstoy. In this famous novella, the archetypal story of a man who "has it all", Ivan is stricken by cancer in middle age, rages against the idea of death, and is finally reconciled to its inevitability. Tolstoy satirizes nineteenth-century Russian society, the bureaucracy, the medical profession, and marriage. This screenplay contains an animated sequence describing a failing marriage through the use of "Mamushka" dolls; music by Tchaikovsky. Approx. running time: 120 minutes."